Jena dumped her armload of ritual supplies on her altar, which was the coffee table's secret identity. Not even her husband knew she'd begun to practice witchcraft, nor would he ever, as long as Jena remained careful. This evening, she'd surprised him with tickets to take his teenage son to the speedway, one of the pastimes they both were avid about and would certainly keep them out late.
Jena closed the curtains before undressing. Whenever possible, she performed her rituals skyclad. The idea was to stand before the Goddess without pretension, although there was nothing extravagant in the way she dressed, or in her naked body for that matter.
Carefully, she reread the directions, touching each of the items listed. She had her mortar and pestle to grind up the herbs, a piece of paper and a pencil, Bay leaves, Dill seed and Sandalwood powder, each in the small sandwich bags in which the health food store on the corner dispensed bulk items. She arranged the standard alter items, a container of earth, a chalice of water, incense, and two white candles, a lighter and a shaker of salt.
Thus arranged, Jena sat cross-legged before her alter and began to meditate. The books she'd read stressed meditation and grounding before any power raising and spell casting, if only Jena's mind would quit chattering at her.
She breathed in deeply, feeling the power accumulate within her, and exhaled. Remember the warning. Jena frowned at her own disruptive thoughts. The book laying open on her alter had several warnings, but the one for this spell, the spell to destroy an enemy's power to harm you, had warned of a boomerang effect. If her enemy's psychic shields were stronger than the spell, the spell would return to fulfill its purpose on the sender.
Inhaling again, Jena fixed her thoughts on the success story that had followed the spell, in which a man had been able to drive off a vicious supervisor. She exhaled, it wasn't a supervisor that troubled Jena, it was her husband's ex-wife.
Frustrated with her lack of concentration, Jena drove aside the memories that still caused her to shake with anger, and focused on grounding and power raising. Mentally, she reached deep into the earth and visualized its molten center driving a lava channel up through the crust, through her body and spraying out of her like a water hose. "Ready," she whispered.
Lighting the candles and incense in a clockwise fashion, she invoked the elements and the Goddess. Mindful of the warning, she began with a protection spell. In a loud voice she repeated the long chant seven times, subtlety raising a finger after each to keep track.
At last, she was ready. Jena added the herbs together in her small mortar and ground them with the pestle as best she could. The Dill seeds wouldn't crush, and the bits of Bay leaves all fell to the bottom. They'll still burn, she figured. Jena ripped the paper into three pieces, and wrote her enemy's name on each: Elisabeth.
As instructed, she visualized Elisabeth, and the cruel grin she’d flashed from behind the police officer's back after falsely accusing Jena of trying to run her over. Jena lit the first slip of paper and tossed it into the herbs. She read the spell with feeling as the paper burned itself out, leaving the herbs unsinged.
"Crap," Jena mumbled. From the pad of paper in the coffee table's cupboard, she ripped a half a sheet, which she folded and molded into a bowl. Carefully, she dumped the herbs onto the paper, and stiffed the lot back into the bowl of the mortar.
She repeated the chant with the second slip of paper, using it to light the contents of the mortar, which flamed up three inches until the paper had burnt down and then smoked heavily as the herbs burned, smelling like a late fall campfire. She hoped the smoke detector wouldn't go off. This time she visualize Elisabeth as she'd raged at the child support office when they had informed her that she was not entitled to a percentage of Jena's income.
As the book had instructed, Jena 'felt' a thoughtform growing above the smoky alter, fueled by the power she'd raised, the elements and the Goddess, the burning herbs and her own anger. Elisabeth intruded upon Jena's life in more than just physical ways. She could feel Elisabeth's constant hatred, and at night Jena battled her in dreams. A pressure, like high humidity on a sinus headache, filled her aura for days after any encounter with Elizabeth until finally Jena could think of nothing but to rid herself of this hateful woman. All these feeling swirled into the body of the invisible thoughtform.
Jena lit the last slip of paper and tossed it into the smoldering pile. This time as she chanted she couldn't help but visualize strangling that woman. With the last line of the chant, Jena 'saw' the thoughtform fly off on its task.
Done at last, Jena thanked the elements and the Goddess for their assistance before pulling on her jeans and sweatshirt and deconstructing her altar. The smelly haze hung low in the living room, even with all the windows open and even after she’d set up the fan to draw the smoke out, the haze remained when her husband and stepson returned from the track.
"There is no way he should have won," her stepson Mark exclaimed as he followed his dad in the front door. "He was in fifteenth place going into the last lap!"
"A bet's a bet," Andrew reminded him. "You mow our lawn this Saturday."
"That's so bogus." Mark smiled. They always enjoyed the their 'guy' time together.
Andrew pecked Jena's cheek. "You burn something or are you taking up smoking?"
"I let the soup boil over," she lied. Before they could ask any further questions, Jena asked, "Want to order pizza and watch a movie?"
In half an hour the pizza had arrived and Jena had returned with a selection of recent action movies that the guys loved and which she didn't mind, as long as she covered her eyes during the bloodier moments.
With the pizza box on her sometimes alter, and the movie fast-forwarded through the previews, the three of them settled in for the evening. Mark and Andrew each hogged a side of the couch, and Jena sat on the floor by Andrew's legs.
Whenever Mark came over for the weekend visitation, they tried to have a fun time. Jena usually enjoyed seeing the closeness the guys shared, but before long she became acutely aware that their closeness excluded her. She often felt like an outsider during those weekends.
Occasionally, like now, she'd try to reach into their world, to be a part of it. Without Andrew really noticing, Jena leaned against his leg and he rested a hand on her shoulder. Little attentions at times like these meant so much to her. Jena glanced up at Mark, who was watching her and she smiled.
His answering two-second grimace told Jena that he disapproved of her horning in on his dad. Not wanting him to resent her, Jena leaned away from her husband and against the couch instead. Mark nodded, probably unconsciously, approving the move.
Although they usually got along, Jena knew Mark still harbored the hope that his parents might one day reconcile. On more than one occasion she'd overheard the guys argue that point.
On a spiritual level, Jena felt that she and Mark would connect someday. Twice she'd seen him in visions. The first time had been shortly before Jena and Andrew had married. She'd been tired the day she went to check out the park where they'd planned to exchange vows and she slouched on a park bench overlooking the water. Like a ghost, she'd seen Mark appear before her holding ethereal wires that stretched from Jena, and he was plugging her into himself. With a fleeting thought about how Mark was 'the connection' to Andrew's former life, Jena had jerked out of the vision as though waking from a dream.
The other time she'd seen him had been right before the trial. Elisabeth's false accusations of attempted vehicular assault went to court after almost a year and over three thousand dollars in legal fees. Jena couldn't keep her body from shaking as she waited for the judge to appear and call the court in session, until a flash behind her right shoulder, and the one second vision of Mark standing beside her with his hand on her shoulder. Focusing on that ethereal vote of confidence, Jena managed to testify calmly, convincing the jury of her innocence.
Fatigue gradually weighed down Jena's eyelids. Only halfway through the first movie, Jena kissed her husband and stepson goodnight then crawled into her bed. She immediately dropped into a vivid dream.
She dreamt she heard a knock on her front door, and when she opened it a large man formed of shadow and smoke entered. He said, "Your plan has failed. The guard was too strong."
Jena knew he meant her spell. She opened her mouth to speak, but the man was too swift.
He clutched her throat into a steel grip, shaking her. He growled, "Don't you cast any more spells on her!"
Jena struggled to breathe, but couldn't. She fought to break his grasp, with no success. Mentally, she cried for the Goddess to save her, as she had in all the dreams where Elisabeth had attacked her, but Jena knew the Goddess wouldn't save her form a creature of her own making.
"Promise you won't cast anymore spells on her!"
Jena tried to speak, unable to utter a sound. The world was going black as her brain starved for oxygen. She cried out telepathically to the creature, I promise!
With a deep gasp, Jena sat up in bed.
The next morning, after Andrew and Mark started working on Andrew's car, which would keep them occupied most of the day, Jena walked to the occult store a few blocks away.
Since she began practicing the craft several months ago, Jena had visited the store several times, but she declined to engage in any in-depth discussions with the pagans that worked there. They'd always seemed nice enough, but she wanted to keep her practice private. Today she went hoping to find someone willing to talk with her.
The store smelled of burnt sage, a ward against negativity, which Jena inhaled deeply, hoping it might calm some of the fears that last night's encounter had inspired. The cluttered store seemed abandoned, so Jena nervously poked through the tie-dyed shirts, pewter statues and tarot decks, until her eyes locked with those of a tall young man sitting on a beanbag chair behind the glass counter.
"Can I help you?" Only his lips moved. He wore one of the tie-dyed shirts with a white pentacle painted on the front and an old pair of army green walking shorts.
"Yeah. I guess. I kind of need to talk to somebody." Jena knew she sounded foolish.
A black cat leapt up on the counter and butted its head against Jena's arm until she picked it up. It purred so deeply that Jena felt the vibration in her bones.
"Luna approves of you." He grinned.
"Is that rare?"
"Naw, she likes just about everybody." He hoisted himself out of the beanbag chair and leaned an elbow on the counter. "So what's the problem?"
Jena found it easier to relate her story by looking at Luna, and whenever she thought of skipping a detail, the cat's purring seemed to ease it out of her. She unloaded the whole history of the growing conflict between herself and Elizabeth, ending with the nightmare that had frightened her.
"And now what?" he asked.
"I'm not saying that she is a witch herself, but I'm afraid maybe she's a natural witch. That she'll continue to attack me and that I won't be able to defend myself." Jena rubbed her cheek on Luna's soft fur. "I just keep thinking, 'what more can go wrong', you know."
He sniffed. "Yeah. There's your problem."
"Excuse me?"
"You keep challenging the universe to top itself by creating bigger disasters for you. From now on, ask 'what more can go right.' Right?"
"Okay," Jena sighed. She'd hoped for more. "But what if she is still determined to ruin my life. She said she would, you know. She said if I every married her ex, that she would never stop."
"Looking at your aura, I can understand why." He smiled.
Jena glanced down at herself. "Why? What's wrong with it?"
"It's a fortress. Some people take that as a challenge. They won't let up until they knock down those walls."
"That's what the book said to visualize. It said to visualize a brick wall."
He shook his head. "It never ceases to amaze me how much harm can come from a little knowledge. You read some books, and you think you're a witch." He plucked a book from the stand behind him. "First, throw away that book you were using. Haven't you heard of the three-fold rule? Any energy you send out will return upon you at three-fold strength. That is what caused your nightmare. Don't cast anymore spells on what's-her-name and you won't have any problems with it."
"Oh." Jena lowered her eyes.
"Secondly, learn about karma, and energy work." He pointed a finger at her. "Only perform energy work on yourself."
"Okay."
He rung up the book without asking her if she wanted to buy it. "That'll be eleven-fifty. Read this book. Then, if you still want to be a witch, our coven has an open circle on the second Tuesdays of the month."
"Thanks." Jena paid for the book, and Luna leapt out of her arms and went to stand by the door as though escorting her out.
"One more thing," the young man called before Jena left, "I wouldn't go ascribing all these attack on this woman. The scars in you aura have a male signature."
Jena thanked him, and Luna, and walked straight to the park where she could read and think. She didn't want to return home just yet, especially since the young man at the store said it was a man who's energy she'd felt attacking her. She wanted to dismiss that comment. How could he know that? How had he known she visualized a brick wall in her aura?
If it was a man whose energy buffeted against her constantly, who was it? And why? Could her husband unconsciously be using her to fight his battles with his ex-wife? Elisabeth left him alone once she'd turned her wrath on Jena, and that left Andrew and Mark free to have their father-son relationship.
Jena read the book on auras and chakras. Each technique she read, she performed right there in a sunny spot in the center of the park. She grounded her energy, this time sending her energy down into the earth, rather than drawing energy up from it. She learned how to erect a 'sentry' that would ground negativity that came her way, instead of Jena having to fight it off herself. Finally, she read the technique on removing the scars in her aura.
As Jena began to meditate, she understood what that fellow from the store had meant by the energy being from a man. She could feel that herself now. Following the instructions, she visualize a free gift of love, a bouquet of flowers, over the scar and moved it all outside her aura, and then visualized it blowing up, which the book claimed would send the gift and the energy back to its sender.
The release felt so good, Jena repeated the sequence for each of the scars. The warming sun on her back filled her with hope and for the first time in a while, she felt her spirit lighten.
"Hey!" The masculine voice startled Jena out of her reverie. She glanced up at Mark who stood over her.
"What's up? Am I late?" Jena tried to stand but her stepson shoved her back down.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. The veracity in his voice was like the growl of a wild animal.
"It's you!" Jena's eye widened. She instinctively wanted to throw up her brick wall for protection from the torrent of negative energy her stepson flung at her, but she visualized her sentry instead, bright and strong, right between them, absorbing and then grounding away the angry energy.
Mark shook his head for a second as though distracted, and then he focused on Jena again. "I know what you've been doing. I know what that smoke last night was about. You cast that spell, didn't you?"
"How do you know what that smoke was from?"
"How do I know?" He reached inside the neck of his shirt and pulled out the silver pentacle on his necklace. "I fought off that thoughtform of yours." He snarled, "Hope you enjoyed it."
"Mark." Jena reached for him. "I was just trying to stop these attacks. Your mother...Every chance she gets...You know how she's done me."
"Why wouldn't you just go away?" he shouted.
Jena felt her sentry struggling to ground the energy, but too much overflowed and struck her at full force. Her head felt like it would split.
"Even my mother was willing to let my family fall apart. She wanted to 'get on with her life', just like you made my dad. My life was shattering in every direction."
"I didn't take you dad away from your mom. They were divorce when I met him."
"They could never get back together with you in the way!"
Jena remembered the techniques she'd read. She visualized hundreds of flowers, free gifts of love, flying at Mark.
He turned away.
Using the strongest protection she'd learned, Jena visualized a large flower with a big mouth that would eat and grow off the negativity Mark sent at her.
Mark frowned and glared at her. "What do you keep doing? What is this with your aura? Do you think you're strong enough to fight me? I've fueled my mother's fight against you for all these years. Do you think you're powerful enough to win?"
He must have learned the craft from books, too. He didn't seem to know about the three-fold rule, or maybe he'd always been stronger than the shields he'd encountered.
The monster flower gobbled every bit of negative energy that came Jena's way. In an instant it was as big as a man, and she sent it back to Mark.
His lips trembled. His balled up fists opened. Tears welled up in his eyes.
The book said this technique would show an attacker what he was really like, and that most people didn't realize their own cruelty. Jena reached for Mark, expecting him to run away.
He dropped to his knees and embraced her. "I...just wanted...wanted to be whole again."
"I know." Jena hugged him until he'd cried himself out. After a long while he sat back, and they laughed a little, mostly out of relief that their struggle was over.
Mark helped Jena to her feet. "Let's go home."
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